Growing Off-Exchange Equity Share; New Market Share Highs for MEMX Options
Aug 6, 2025
Off-Exchange Equity Share Surpasses 52%; MEMX Options Posts New Market Share Records
Highlights & Recent Developments
- The SEC will hold a roundtable on September 18 to discuss OPR elimination
- Off-exchange market share hit a new record of 52.1% in July, fueled by high retail activity
- Top retail stocks on MEMX included TSLA, NVDA, PLTR, CRCL and AMD
- MEMX Options market share increased to 4.1% of total and 7.6% of regular electronic
- MEMX Options quote performance ranked first in Non-Penny contracts and second in Penny contracts
Equities Exchange Highlights
The SEC is holding a roundtable on September 18th to discuss the Order Protection Rule (Rule 611) in the stock and listed options markets.
In July, off-exchange market share hit a new record of 52.1%. Several factors have fueled the rise in off-exchange trading, including higher retail activity done by retail wholesalers, sub-$1 stock activity, ATS segmentation in private rooms, and VWAP trajectory crossing on ATSs. Additionally, regulatory constraints in tick sizes (1 cent) and round lot sizes (100 shares) have contributed to artificially wider spreads, impacting exchange quote competitiveness.
High retail activity has fueled this summer’s equity rally and strong industry volumes in July. TSLA accounted for nearly 11.6% of retail volume, while NVDA was 6.8% of retail volume. Several of the top stocks are connected to the crypto markets, including CRCL, COIN, HOOD and MSTR. The top 20 stocks were a significant percent of retail volume in July, at 45% of total.
Options Exchange Highlights
MEMX Options hit new monthly market share highs in July, including total market share of 4.1% and regular electronic market share of 7.6%.
Strong quote performance contributed to MEMX market share growth. In Non-Penny options, MEMX market share was 11.1%, and its quote performance rank was first out of 18 exchanges. In Penny options, MEMX market share was 7.1%, and its quote performance rank was second. In SPY, market share was 6.1%, and MEMX Options ranked second in quote performance.
Many of the top 20 most active retail symbols on MEMX were the same in both equities and options, including TSLA, NVDA, MSTR, AMD, HOOD, PLTR, HOOD, CRCL, AMZN and GOOGL. SPY accounted for nearly 13% of retail options volume, while QQQ was 6% of retail volume. The top 20 options symbols were a significant percent of retail volume in July, at 53% of total.
